aquestionofmorals
Most of the discussion about time travel and the problems thereof center around aspects of physics, or the interrelated question of paradoxical impossibilities. Discussion around historical concerns (when discussing a model in which time travel changes the future in a direct manner, rather than some dimensional tangent, or however it may go) when discussing time travel usually center around doing more harm than good when mucking about in the past.
What if we were to disregard such concerns in the debate over traveling into the past? Just... for a moment, chuck them out the window, and consider the question of morality (perhaps a human construct, but one we can bandy about nonetheless). Say, we could say as an absolute certainty that if we traveled into the past and removed the leaders of the axis powers in the Second World War, and guided the socio-economic factors that led up to that war into a prosperous future so that such a war with is accompanying atrocities never existed. Or any other change... and we could be absolutely certain that the net effect would be a benefit towards humanity, rather than a detriment.
Would you?
I suppose the question is... if we could change the past for the better, no strings attached... is history so sacred that you would not tamper with it to produce the desired result? I'm not even sure what my own answer would be. Just a question I posed to myself earlier today.
It's a question of absolute benefit over the sanctity of historical posterity. While I lean towards absolute benefit... I have a moral objection towards changing history, even if we could be absolutely certain of a net beneficial effect. It's illogical, but it's there.